These rough estimates suggest that, in the not quite five years of IPR data available, IPR has saved plaintiffs and defendants $2.31 billion in deadweight losses, primarily in the form of legal fees. That’s approximately $460 million a year that companies can spend on creating new jobs and researching new technologies, instead of paying lawyers to write motions and argue in court.

I’m generally unexcited about reforms that don’t directly favor commons-based production, but IPR seems very good in that it has shifted significant resources away from the IP industry.

An inter partes review (IPR) is a procedure for challenging the validity of a United States patent before the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The procedure is conducted by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). The inter partes review procedure was enacted on September 16, 2012 as part of the America Invents Act. It replaced a previous review procedure called inter partes reexamination, which in turn stemmed from ex parte reexamination proceedings. Under the ex parte system, any p...